Gentlemen, start your Roku

If you still haven’t found the perfect Father’s Day gift (hello? Have you even been to our Father’s Day gift guide yet?) we still have a few ideas up our sleeves that you can get in time to serve up with bagels in bed on June 21.

If you’ve got a movie junkie in the house, take a look at the Roku Digital Video Player, sometimes known as the Netflix Video Player. I love this because I’ve got the kind of SigOth who thinks that dropping an envelope in the mail is hard work.

Basically for a very affordable $100, the Roku player gives you streaming access to 50,000 on-demand movies–12,000 from your Netflix account, the rest, like new releases, via Amazon for a rental fee.It also gives you the option to see the movie you’re in the mood for now, as opposed to guessing what you’ll be in the mood for next week. And yes, I’m fickle like that.

Keep in mind this is not a gift for video purists who own humongo TVs and a $10,000 surround sound system in their custom-built media library — the quality isn’t as good as Blu Ray and you’ll need additional cables for it to look decent enough on your 50″ Sony Widescreen. But if you want a quick, easy video player for say, the bedroom or the playroom, or if you want a more affordable alternative to expensive satellite or cable movies, the Roku is a really nice choice.

After all, how many times can one person watch Anaconda II? I’m talking to you, cable programmers. –Liz